Imaginative play is crucial to a child's development. Why? There are many reasons for this.

Imaginative play brings the big, adult world down to a size where children can discover, explore and learn about it.

When kids pretend, they are learning to flexible - pretending that a ruler is the scepter of a powerful queen teaches them to "make do" with what's available.

Imaginative play helps children to think things through. To set up an elaborate castle and dragon story, they must concentrate and imagine scenarios and story lines. Who goes where? Who does that dragon scorch? Planning all of these elements helps the child to think about sequence, story development and problem solving. The child must have a story in mind that helps him to perform each of these steps in a logical and orderly way.

Kids learn empathy for others when roll playing. Sympathy for a doll who gets "sick" or fear when the dragon approaches helps them to understand how others feel, even when they themselves are not feeling those emotions so personally.

Research demonstrates that children who engage in make-believe play are usually more happy and cooperative, more willing to take turns, have larger vocabularies and share better than children who do not.

As you can surmise, imaginative play is an incredibly rich educational tool for healthy emotional and mental growth for a child. It gives the words, "Go and play" a new sense of importance, doesn't it?